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Judge issues first verdict in Monte Cahn v. Oversee.net

Andrew Allemann — Thu, 09 Feb 2012 03:00:35 +0000

Judge sides with Oversee.net on narrow issue in lawsuit.

The Honorable Stephen V. Wilson has issued a verdict in the first trial between Monte Cahn and his former employer, Oversee.net.

The decision was extremely narrow, covering just one aspect of Cahn’s claims against the company.

Cahn had a bonus plan that was essentially an earnout from when Oversee.net bought Moniker from Seevast. It provided up to $13 million over three years.

One of the bonus measures was an overall Oversee EBITDA number that was to be set each year by the board. When business conditions deteriorated, the board never ended up setting the goal specific to the incentive plan.

However, it did set a company budget that had an EBITDA goal. This goal was used for other management at the company. Cahn argued that this is the number he should have been held to under his incentive plan.

The judge issued his findings solely about one question:

“whether Oversee promised Cahn that his Performance Goal under the MIP [incentive plan] would be identical to a target (the “Company Budget”) used as part of the process for determining bonuses for Oversee legacy management employees.”

The court decided that Oversee did not make this promise.

Oversee.net provided evidence from its negotiations with Cahn before he joined the company that showed the company explicitly said it would not hold Cahn’s bonus measures to be consistent with the rest of management. Its goal, as stated in the incentive plan, was to reward “significant contributions toward the continued or improved profitability and growth of the Company ”

~~Moniker~~Oversee.net’s 2008 EBITDA “budget” goal was $51.1 million. That goal was reduced by more than 50% to $23.9 million for 2009. Since the earnout was designed to reward growth, the judge said it wouldn’t make sense for this budget number to apply to Cahn’s bonus plan.

Oversee.net later offered Cahn an alternative bonus plan when it realized the existing one wouldn’t give him much of an incentive because he was unlikely to hit the lofty numbers. Afterall, the company slashed its own projections by half. Cahn was able to receive a bonus under the old plan or the new plan.

In 2009, Cahn received a bonus under the new plan (with reduced targets) that was about 10% of what he would have gotten under the old plan.

The judge questioned how Cahn would have accepted this reduced bonus if he thought he was due $1 million or more under the original bonus plan.

As I stressed at the beginning of this post, this is just one narrow issue in the case Cahn brought against Oversee. There will be much more to come.

You can read the judge’s decision here.

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Key-Systems CEO discusses Moniker and SnapNames acquisition

Andrew Allemann — Tue, 07 Feb 2012 16:30:43 +0000

No dramatic changes on tap but more ccTLDs and other improvements on the way.

KeyDrive’s acquisition of Moniker and SnapNames last week has shaken up the domain name investor ecosystem.

I just talked to Key-Systems CEO Alexander Siffrin to better understand what this means for customers. (KeyDrive includes Key-Systems Group and NameDrive Group, as well as the recently acquired companies.)

If you’re worried about dramatic changes to how you do business with Moniker and SnapNames, it sounds like you should relax: Siffrin says you shouldn’t expect any major overhaul of the businesses any time soon.

“Our strategic point is to increase service levels and service offerings,” said Siffrin.

For example, the company plans to dramatically increase the number of ccTLDs on Moniker as well as SnapNames.

You can also expect enhanced hosting options and other value-added services. SnapNames will also be integrated into the company’s registrars (and potentially others in the future), which will give more exposure to domains for sale through the platform.

Pricing isn’t expected to change any time soon and customers will continue to use the Moniker and SnapNames interfaces they’re familiar with.

If you haven’t heard of Key-Systems, it’s probably because most of the company’s customers come through resellers.

“Historically, Key-Systems started with a retail site but built a very stable API in the back of the retail site and decided to offer that to resellers,” said Siffrin. “The impact it had to our business was more than we expected, so right now most of our clients come from the reseller area.”

Although KeyDrive is mostly in Germany and Luxembourg, it has existing offices in Austin, Texas and Leesburg, Virginia. With the acquisition it now has a presence in Portland and Ft. Lauderdale. The company is looking to hire several customer support and account management personnel in its Florida office.

KeyDrive began talking to Oversee.net about acquiring the two businesses about a year ago and closed on the deal the Monday before DOMAINfest. The sales price was not disclosed.

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6 questions about DOMAINfest answered

Andrew Allemann — Tue, 07 Feb 2012 15:11:07 +0000

A look back at last week’s DOMAINfest conference.

Before heading to DOMAINfest I posed six questions that would be answered by the end of the week. Here are the answers.

1. How will Oversee.net’s new leadership present itself?

Just before the conference began, Oversee.net announced that co-presidents Debra Domeyer and Scott Morrow had been promoted to co-CEOs.

I haven’t seen many “co-CEO” type situations end favorably, but they seem to be handling it well so far.

Most people I talked to at the conference were positive about the new leadership. Domeyer will be more visible to domainers since she handles the domain monetization side of the business. Morrow covers the vertical markets properties.

The new leadership gives Oversee a “fresh start” after a rough few years.

2. Will Oversee.net address Moniker?

Yep. KeyDrive, which owns NameDrive and Key-Systems, announced that it acquired both Moniker and SnapNames. That leaves a lot of of questions up in the air, but I think this is a good thing. Oversee had been trying to get rid of these properties for at least a year. It’s good to have them in the hands of a company that wants to invest in them. More on that in a future article.

3. Will the new parties make up for the (lack of) Playboy Mansion?

I think both parties were good. But I’ll let others chime in here.

4. How many people will be there?

About 600 people were expected to attend. More on that in a future article.

5. Can DOMAINfest successfully include topics outside the typical domainer realm?

Confession time – I didn’t really go to any of the sessions. But they were well attended, with 200-400 people in many of the sessions. I’d say it was another step toward bridging the domainer and internet marketing communities. These are two communities that historically haven’t understood much about each other.

6. What big company announcements will be made?

Sedo announced a big deal with GoDaddy, but KeyDrive probably grabbed the most attention with its acquisition.

…

Now, a bigger question: where do Oversee.net and DOMAINfest go from here? They have emerged a smaller, leaner company after the sale of Moniker and SnapNames. Now they have a vertical markets division and DomainSponsor. They’re a smaller part of the domainer lifecycle and have only about 100 employees, down from 200 just a few years ago.

Is DomainSponsor alone enough to justify holding a large conference each year? Will it team up with KeyDrive for future domain auctions at its conferences?

Will the conference eventually morph to a point where it no longer makes sense to put “domain” in the title?

Coming soon: Domain/Affiliate/LeadGen/SEOfest, presented by Oversee.net.

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KeyDrive acquires Moniker and SnapNames

Andrew Allemann — Wed, 01 Feb 2012 17:15:29 +0000

Oversee.net sells off domain marketplace, expiring domain, and registrar companies.

[Update: read this follow up story to understand what this means for customers.]

KeyDrive, which owns domain name registrar Key-Systems as well as NameDrive, has acquired SnapNames and Moniker from Oversee.net.

Combined, KeyDrive says it is now the sixth largest ICANN accredited registrar.

Rumors about the acquisition have been swirling around DOMAINfest this week. KeyDrive has now updated its web site to confirm the acquisition.

Both SnapNames and Moniker were challenging acquisitions for Oversee.net. SnapNames lost its most important domain registrar, Network Solutions, shortly after the acquisition in 2007. It then dealt with the so-called “halvarez” scandal where a SnapNames employee was found shill bidding in auctions.

Moniker was also a challenge, primarily because it was purchased at the peak in early 2008. Oversee.net paid about $24 million for the domain registrar. Although the sale price hasn’t been disclosed, you can bet it took a sizable loss on the sale.

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6 questions to be answered at DOMAINFest this week

Andrew Allemann — Mon, 30 Jan 2012 16:58:20 +0000

A preview of the week ahead in Santa Monica.

The largest domain name conference, DOMAINfest, takes place in Santa Monica this week. There’s a lot to look for in the 2012 edition. Here are six questions that will be answered before the end of the week.

1. How will Oversee.net’s new leadership present itself?

Oversee.net branded itself largely with former CEO Jeff Kupietzky. Now Oversee.net has new leadership with co-presidents Debra Domeyer and Scott Morrow. Domeyer attended TRAFFIC last Fall, but for most people this conference will be the first introduction to the pair.

2. Will Oversee.net address Moniker?

It’s one of the industry’s worst kept secrets that Oversee.net has been shopping around Moniker. Also this month we saw the departure of some of Moniker’s longtime account managers. As a Moniker customer, I received no notice of the account manager changes.

Will Oversee continue to be silent about Moniker? Or will it address the changes head on to instill confidence. Confidence, after all, is one of the most important things people consider when selecting a registrar.

3. Will the new parties make up for the (lack of) Playboy Mansion?

There’s no trip to the Playboy Mansion this year. After over 100 people got sick last year I think that’s probably OK with most people.

But there will still be a Playboy element. .Co is sponsoring a party at Petersen Automotive Museum that will include some playmates as well as the star of the GoDaddy .co Super Bowl commercial Natalia Velez.

The final night party will be at House of Blue and includes “edgy, sexy and interactive entertainment”. It will be interesting.

4. How many people will be there?

DOMAINfest has attracted 700 people in recent years. That’s about the peak I could imagine if it’s mostly domainers. But the show is shifting — just like the company — and is attracting more from the lead gen, affiliate, and SEO spaces.

5. Can DOMAINfest successfully include topics outside the typical domainer realm?

This year you’ll hear a lot more about lead gen, SEO, and affiliate marketing at the show. It will be interesting to see how this shift is managed.

6. What big company announcements will be made?

Domain companies tend to make big announcements during domain conferences. Already this morning Sedo announced a deal with GoDaddy. What big deals and announcements will we hear this week?

There you have it. Six big questions that we’ll know the answer to by the end of the week.

See you in Santa Monica.

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Moniker publishes final DOMAINfest auction list

Andrew Allemann — Fri, 27 Jan 2012 16:37:01 +0000

Two more valuable domain names added to auction.

Moniker has published the final list of domains for next week’s live domain auction during DOMAINfest, as well as the online auction to follow.

Bargain.com and Democracy.com have been added to the auction. Bargain.com’s reserve is north of $750,000 while Democracy.com is available for somewhere between $100,000 and $250,000.

Bargain.com is owned by FYI Direct, the company behind credit score monitoring site FreeScore.com.

Democracy.com should be interesting given the elections this year. It’s probably best for a think tank.

A number of the other high dollar domains are owned by CA.

Moniker’s last big auction resulted in the multi-million dollar sales of Social.com and Data.com, although neither were sold during the main auction. Salesforce.com paid $4.5 million for Data.com, which it uses for its Jigsaw.com product.

The live auction takes place Thursday, February 2 from 4:30 to 6:00 pm PST. The follow on internet auction at SnapNames will go through February 16. The extended online auction includes 250 domain names in addition to any names that don’t sell in the live auction.

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QE.com hits reserve and other Moniker auction insights

Andrew Allemann — Tue, 24 Jan 2012 20:58:34 +0000

Three domains have already hit reserve ahead of auction, and CA lists five domains for sale.

Next week DOMAINfest comes to Santa Monica, California. That means it’s time for another Moniker premium domain auction.

As it has done recently, the company is holding “pre-bidding” on a number of domains that will be in the auction. Already QE.com has hit its reserve with a $57,500 bid. That means the domain will sell for sure at next week’s auction.

A couple other small price tag domains have hit reserves during pre-bidding, including WeddingCards.net for $590 and CaliforniaRolls.com for $300.

Computer Associates, aka CA, has five domain names for sale in the auction: Security.com, Empire.com, Platinum.com, 1800business.com, and Cheyenne.com.

The acquisition juggernaut came into many of these domain names through acquisitions.

Security.com – Netegrity in 2004
Empire.com – appears to be acquisition of Empire Technologies, but can’t find details
Platinum.com – Platinum technology in 1999
Cheyenne.com – Cheyenne Software in 1996

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